What is the difference between the words thee, thou, and you?

Question

Most languages other than English have an intimate form of address as well as a formal one. I have been told that thee and thou are part of that from the english language. Is that so? What about the word "ye" versus" you?

In my church, we pray using the words thee and thou. But no one knows how to conjugate verbs with them, so it's somewhat difficult. I have heard church leaders say that the words show respect to God, but in reality I think they show closeness and familiarity, like praying in other languages with the familiar form. Any thoughts?

Answer 1

Most languages have endings (inflections) of some kind which are added to the stems of verbs to show person, number and tense. Modern English has fewer than most, retaining only a remnant of the much more complex system used in Old English. Like Modern German, Old English was moderately inflected:

First person singular (I): -e
Second person singular (thou): -ast or -east
Third person singluar (he, she, it): -ath or -eth
Plural (we, you, they): -ath or -en

This system was already being gradually eroded before the Norman Conquest, when the interaction between the Anglo-Saxons and the Danes, who spoke a closely related language, helped to iron out the inflections that made understanding difficult. In Middle English the plural endings varied according to geographical region, and by the 16th century they fell out of use with the exception of the northern -es ending, which was adopted for use in London English for the third person singular. Shakespeare used both -eth and -es for this (writing "he driveth" but "he dreames", for example). The language of the King James Bible and of "traditional language" church services follows a pattern which survived in use until the 17th century:

I come, thou comest, he cometh, we come, you come, they come

"Thou" survived in Quaker use until at least the end of the late 19th century, together with "thee", used for the object of the sentence (like "him" instead of "he"), and the possessive forms "thy" and "thine". These may still be heard in some communities where traditional dialect is spoken. Some verbs have their own particular forms, such as "thou dost, he doth, thou art".

As for the two words spelled "ye", they are quite unrelated. One of them is the old plural form of "thou", replaced gradually between 1300 and 1600 by "you", which was originally the plural of "thee".

The other came about because Old English used the letters Þ (eth) and Ð (thorn) to represent the sounds that we spell today with "th". In Middle English Þ and Y became to resemble each other so much that they couldn't be distinguished, and because Þ was lacking in Continental alphabets, it was easier for early English printers to switch to "th". But in a few words such as "the" and "that", the use of Þ persisted in manuscript use, and many printers used Y as a substitute. This habit gave use to the pseudo-archaic use of "ye" for "the", and so we have names such as "Ye Olde Online MP3 Shoppe".

Answer 2

Thee and thou are (or were) the familiar, while ye and you are the formal/plural. It often annoys me how people screw that one up, but it is related to the matter of the "Royal We." People of higher status, traditionally, get addressed in the plural. Possibly because anything you tell them would effect their entire household, but that's just a theory.

You will notice in Shakespeare and toher works of the time that characters call each other by thee/thou when they are friends or otherwise equals, but ye/you when addressing a more important person or trying to be respectful, the only exception to this being when either a character is very angry and is forgetting himself, or else when they do not realize that the person they are speaking to is of a higher status.
Eventually, it was deemed rude to address a person as "thou" and so it was pretty much dropped from the language.

I have often wondered why one uses thee/thou when addressing God, but it seems to be traditional in most languages (in Latin, the paternoster uses the familiar "tu.")

As to what the difference is between thee and thou, here's a little chart:

Nominative: Thou, You

Accusative: Thee, You

Genitive: Thy/Thine*, Your

Dative: Thee, You

*Thine would be used if the following word began with a vowel, otherwise, use thy.

Answer 3

Theee, thou and you are all forms of english, the first two forms are extinct in everyday use. remember that english was not standarized untill very recently actually. In England, there were several ways of speaking it and of writing it. The southern variety (London) spoken by King James was the "Thee, thou" form which he enforced in the translation of the Bible.

It is a clear sign or reminiscence that originally, english used to declinate the nouns, giving it a distinct form depending on the function the noun plays in the sentence, just like german or latin. Using cases such as Nominative, Genitive, Accusative and Dative. Interesting. Isn't it?

Thee and thou are closer to authentic germanic languages, like Dutch, Swedish or Danish than "you" which was a vocalic aproximation to the french "tu" when the Normans ruled England and imposed french, changing the english language forever.

Answer 4

You are right.

In earlier forms of English thou forms were the familiar forms, and you forms were the formal forms. Eventually thou forms disappeared from our language (except in one dialect that I know of) and you forms were the only second-person forms available.

I don't know about ye, but I suspect that it's an informal second-person form. I'd have to check on that.

Like you, I pray using thou forms, and, like you, I sometimes have questions about how to conjugate them. I think that many people of my faith think that thou forms sound old, and they think that old means formal, so they think they are formal respectful forms. Like you, though, I believe that we still use them because it shows the intimacy of our relationship with God. He is our Father, after all. Other possible reasons that people of my faith use thou forms is that the King James Bible (which is the Bible we read) uses them. Thou forms are also found in the Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ, but I don't think that the Book of Mormon uses any you forms, so I don't think thou is used as a marker of familiarity there.

Answer 5

Thou=you Hath=have Thy=Your Thou artwork= you're i think of thee is you apart from might... Sorry, i truthfully do no longer understand that one. Hither=here i'm going to objective to replace this if i can keep in mind what thine ability and if i can study the version between thy and thee.

Answer 6

Thou is a slightly derogatory word. It indicates superiority over the addressee. The use of thee indicates inferiority of the speaker. You is a more common word which doesn't take into account inferiority or superiority, and ye is an informal form of ye.

Answer 7

there isnt a difference